PHP & MySQL: Server-side Web Development

Jon Duckett, thank you so much for writing the book that will change my life. I waited three years for you to publish it, and I am going to feast on every word on the next 672 pages (thank you so much for taking your time to write it well). I loved my early read of this book so much that I had to buy two more copies for my mentees. I bought and read your last two second-to-none books in 2016 - HTML & CSS and JS & jQuery. I can't wait to make history with this PHP book. I am on page 170, and I can say for a fact that you covered the topics in way more detail and simplicity than the other bestselling PHP book on Amazon that I have used as a PHP programmer over the last three years. Instead of Jon dedicating about three hundred pages to PHP and MySQL like the last guy (I won't name him as a quick PHP search on Amazon would reveal him), he wisely and courageously dedicated almost 700 pages. I have also bought and taken seven of the best PHP courses on Udemy, and I know this book is better than all of them combined. This is not only the best PHP and MySQL book out there, this is the best programming book in the world. Period. Take that from someone who has spent thousands of dollars in the last 6 years trying to look for a programming language instruction that is expertly written from an education standpoint. Albert Einstein once said, “If you can't explain it to a six-year-old, you don't understand it yourself.” Ninety-nine percent of the programming language boot camps, books, training manuals, and websites cannot explain what they teach to six-year-olds. They do not meet the KISS (keep it simple, stupid) test necessary for educators. A six-year-old can understand what Jon is teaching in this book. I spent over $100,000 on a business school education in Baltimore, and this is the best textbook I have ever read. There is a dearth of educators in the programming education world. You hardly have anyone with an education degree teaching programming, which becomes apparent in the lack of standardization in what they teach. Jon's PHP book is heavily researched and detailed, unbelievably simple, and wonderfully designed. Do yourself a favor and read what this man who shies away from publicity has thoughtfully, generously, and meticulously written.

This appears to be a wonderful book. I went to college and learned all of this but never used it. This book makes it all seem easy to relearn. Well, most of it easy to relearn. I have spent DAYS trying to figure out how to see the programs printed out on the computer. I am not this intelligent. Page 21 says to enter localhost followed by the path from the htdocs folder to where I stored the program. NOTHING SEEMS TO WORK!!! Can some brilliant person tell me what I am doing wrong. Not only that the address that the book tells you to type in does not show me the WELCOME web server sign.

I'm currently teaching a college course in back end web development, and have adopted this book. Pros: - Information compression: What would otherwise take large volumes of text is distilled into rich graphics. This is accomplished through code "anatomy" diagrams, well laid out tables, and pages with clear visual hierarchy and clean layouts. It does all of this while still using large font - which is crucial for me. - Organization of content: The book can used either as reference or read through completely. There are minimal dependencies on upcoming content when reading through. Contextual information is clearly given in section introductions. - Pruning of content: The book covers all of the major use cases I'd expect to be in an intro level book for back end PHP programming, and as added sugar imparts enough database connection and SQL knowledge to allow for database exercises. Advanced content is isolated to the back of the book. - Example code: great library to explore and practice with. - Price: as currently priced, this is a steal - especially for print. Cons: - I tried to think of some constructive criticism, but I can't come up with anything offhand. It's a great book and I'm glad I found it to teach with.

Jon Duckett's "PHP & MySQL: Server-side Web Development" is a worthy follow-up to his popular "JavaScript & jQuery" book. Like its predecessor, this new guide stands out with its visually appealing layout and clear explanations. I have a graphic design background so I really appreciate the work put into designing this book and the cover feels great to touch as well. The book does a great job of making server-side development more approachable. He breaks down complex concepts into manageable chunks, and the well-chosen examples really help reinforce the material. If you're into web development, this book is definitely worth checking out. It's the kind of resource you'll likely find yourself returning to as you work on projects. A lot of things are available freely on the internet, but I'm still someone who enjoys looking at print at the end of the night. (Maybe because I'm getting older). For friends considering learning PHP, I'd absolutely recommend this book.

After waiting well over a year to finally get a copy of this book, I can say the wait was well worth it. In the interim, I had purchased 3 other php books, and they ranged in quality content from a 1 to a 6. This book was a 9.5. Very easy to follow, code was concise without being overly verbose. Did not continually repeat, but built upon the prior example. I appreciated the effective use of sessions and bootstrapping, and have already re-built my codebase to be more modular and easily maintained. The examples and recommendations for how to load records out of PDO was excellent. Too many books are outdated and do not make the most modern and proper recommendations. Generally, this book is true to its word, and really does make it codebase from php8 (instead of copy/paste php5 examples with a few tidbits on what php8 offers). Classes were explained much better than other resources I have read. Namespaces were not extremely clear to me, and I understand pretty well how functions in PLC's get loaded into their own memory environment. So perhaps I should read that section a number of times, although not sure I actually need to utilize namespaces. Twig was beyond my comprehension; I sort of ran through it with "I'll never need that" attitude. I tossed my other php books, and this is my new reference.

I mainly got this book much like most people because Jon duckett wrote it. His books on HTML & CSS were absolutely solid when I first picked them up to get into web development. That was a while ago, and I now work in the realm as a PHP developer with a little over a year under my belt. Everything is I learned for this job I learned while on the job so I'm basing this first impression on this. I've read through about a 4th of this book so far, all of it are concepts I'm extremely familiar with. The reason it seems this book was delayed is because this book includes features from PHP 8 and explicitly calls out these features when they make sense. I can say just on what I've read alone, Jon duckett once again has created an absolutely solid book for PHP development that people are still not really doing. This book has beautiful visuals, fully colored designs, big bold text to explain the concepts. This book also includes some advanced topics related to backend development as well that I have not read yet, such as twig, seo friendly content, dynamic web content, and more. I highly recommend this book alone if you are looking to get started with backend development, PHP is not dead, and although it's not covered by this book Laravel is unironically one of the best backend frameworks today with a rich set of features. I look forward to writing a more through review when I get through the rest of this book.

Love this book! Just wish XAMPP worked reliably. MySQL fails to start on windows 11 so I'll have to figure out how to do everything in the book in a linux environment. Edit: I installed Apache2, MySQL, PHP8, and phpMyAdmin on WSL and was able to get the project files from the book working! No issues so far! I should be able to practice what I've learned and continue onto the last section of the book. :)

I have been involved in IT since the 80's. I have written a number of technical manuals for everything from the Space Shuttle, Military trainers, and paging terminals. I have also been a programmer since the 90's. Every time I went to work for a client as a programmer I had to learn something new, whether it was a computer language or a database, etc. I would usually buy a computer book and digest it before diving into the project. I have shelves and boxes full of computer books from past projects. I have read PHP & MySQL: Server-side Web Development through TWICE, downloaded the programs, and did all the exercises. I have to say that, without a doubt, this the BEST computer book I have ever read! I wish that all computer books were written with the expertise and reader consideration that this book was written with! I can not say enough about how helpful this books has been as a refresher of PHP and MySQL! Not only did it help with learning PHP and MySQL but it also provided a wealth of resources to expand my knowledge and understanding well beyond what was provided by the author! THANK YOU Jon Duckett and Wiley publishing!!!